Errant
by Always Late.Texas Kate
Summary: Adam is abroad. His family can only wonder.
1. One of Their Gods

**_A/N: So I'm a huge poetry lover. Reading through some of my favorite poet's work, there were several themes/images/lines that really stuck out to me as being... applicable? at least on an abstract viewpoint... to many aspects of the Cartwrights. Especially Adam. So here it is. Lines directly from the poem are underlined or un-italicized from the rest of the document (with the exception of the last un-italicized line). All poems for this little stint (I'm not thinking any more than four or five poems will be harmed in the making of this fic) are the work of Constantine P Cavafy, and while I do not claim to own them (or the characters of Bonanza for that matter) I certainly do highly recommend taking a look at them in their entirety._**

 ** _Let me know what you think, and enjoy! :)_**

 ** _(Seriously... Not quite sure if this is considered acceptable or outright plagiarism...)_**

* * *

 ** _One of Their Gods_**

 _Adam isn't quite sure what he expects of Syria._

 _One of_ _Them_ _passed through Selucia's market place._

 _They turned to watch him as he passed- elegant and eerily mute, as a ghost in the day's dying light. And they saw a stranger dark and tall,_ _perfectly handsome_ _\- perfectly alien to them all- with his chin thrust high and proud, and his shoulders set._

 _With the joy of incorruptibility in his eyes_

 _He wore the smoky perfume of wanderlust. His very presence charged the air, so that any passer-by might stop, and turn, and stare. And he would walk—with a rolling grace, stalking on sinuous limbs. He was ghostlike, fluid, exiled from some other plane to lurk the weary haunts of men._

 _The passerby would stare at him_

 _He spoke imperfect Greek, with half-smiling lips twisted to the cadence of another tongue. And the old men would shudder as he passed, and one would ask another if he knew him._

"A Greek of Syria? A stranger?"

 _And he would turn his smiling eyes on them in their shadows, but never say a word._

 _Several who watched with greater attention understood and would stand aside_

 _The ancient ones held their breath until he passed, and the pagan roots of their hearts would freeze the blessing on their lips. Their souls burned with the nearness of him- of this man, this sacred spirit from who-knows-when._

 _Their souls continue to smolder long after he vanishes down the dark roads._

 _Among the shadows_

 _Among the evening lights_

 _He heads_ toward the district which comes alive only at night _,_ _passing airily through the hands of the thief- through the outspread arms of Debauchery, of Lust, and the spell of their kohl-rimmed eyes._

 _And the next morning's light would kiss him with gold, and he who sought the very underworld of the city would paint his conquest in his own smiling eyes._

 _They would strain their eyes toward him. And they would lose him, in the quiet instant, when their half-starved souls might beg to whisper._

 _They would wonder which of_ _Them_ _he might be_

 _And for what questionable enjoyment he had descended_

 _To the streets of Selucia._

 _They would catch one final glance._

 _A boy running—_

"Ad-dam! Ad-dam Cart-wright!"

 _A black cowboy's hat, a belt, an unsent letter… pressed into golden hands._

 _And the longing in their souls would go unsatisfied._


	2. Supplication

**SUPPLICATION**

 _In the early morning hours he remembers, and he worries._

 _The sea has drawn a sailor into its abyss_

 _He almost thinks himself a scholar, studying the pattern of night on cool, moonlit walls. The hour is lost somewhere between the darkness and the dawning- and he breathes quietly, rubbing life into chilled fingertips. He shivers, though the night is warm, and he decides to place the blame on anything but fear._

 _He rises, and lights a candle that throws sharp shadows all around and pulls him, slowly, to the bureau. He rests it there._

 _At the candle-stand of the Holy Mother_

 _The eyes are gleaming at him- the smiling little eyes in the miniature, done in oil. They pierce the very dust of ages, from the grim, uncertain threshold where Life embraces Death._

 _And he prays to her._

 _For strength. For courage. He prays for the son, for whom she gave both everything and nothing._

 _He's as out of reach to Ben as she is now. Abroad. An errant little boy who stole the body of a man and fled with it across a nation, across a sea. Ben would pray for the wayward boy across the span of seven seas- and he does so, touching the portrait a final time._

 _The icon listens gravely and grieves to hear him yearn_

 _And he wonders if she sees the boy, if she knows…_

 _And he wonders if_ he yearns for one that shall no more return.

* * *

 _ **A/N: Well, if people can do song-fics, I can do a poem-fic. Expect this to be a three-parter, perhaps with a two or three part companion to be posted separately later. Today's poem was Supplication**_ _ **, written by CP Cavafy and translated by John Cavafy. Hopefully the next one will end up longer than the Author's Note ^_^'**_

 _ **BJ2, AC1830, and Guest: Thanks so much for taking the time to review! It really means a lot to hear feedback, and I'm glad y'all enjoyed the piece.**_

 _ **Guest: I'm especially appreciative of your review. Like you said, poetry is very open to interpretation, and that was my entire motivation to write these pieces. The majority of Cavafy's work (that I've found at least) is either openly sexual, or has strong sexual undertones. One of Their Gods is no exception. If you want to take a look for yourself, any translation of the poem will work but I used the one translated by Rae Dalvan that you can find on Poetry Foundation.**_

 _ **I tried to apply Adam to this and to the other tones of the poem.**_ _ **Adam's pull for these people is largely due to his sexuality (I see him as the most sexual of his brothers), but also because he's alien to them.**_ _ **They are looking for someone, for some quality, and whatever it is they strain to find it in whoever passes by. Long story short- there's a lot of sexuality in there. A lot. But if that's not what you want to see, it can be read as a deeper longing for something that is not apart of their world.**_

 _ **As far as him being bi-sexual, well, "when in Rome"... Honestly, you can delve into that as far as his character will allow. The underworld of the city can be double-sided: maybe he was seeking debauchery, maybe he was seeking the freedom to be, maybe he's just proud to have come this far. At any rate, you have a sharp eye, a wonderful sense for interpretation, and I really appreciate the thought you put into your review :)**_


	3. Che Fece Il Gran Refiuto

_**Che Fece... Il Gran Refiuto**_

 _Adam makes his decision._

 _He sits in a pale and smoky dawn, and in his solitude his little thoughts might dare to flit across his face. A strip of bark burns in the fire, peeling away from its host in a glowing curl. He watches it with mute disinterest 'til it exhausts itself and dies in a sliver of white ash. And he slowly sighs, and his eyes close against the sting of blue smoke._

 _For some people the day comes_

 _When they have to declare the great_ _Yes_ _or the great_ _No_

 _The fire ebbs. He doesn't notice. His mind is in the markets of Syria, or the great amphitheater of Rome, in all the little places- the crumbling ruins, the operas, the darkened, dirty alleyways rife with crime and swimming in sin. His adventures. His ambitions. His dreams._

 _It is clear at once who has the_ _Yes_ _ready within him_

 _He thinks about the rich paintings found in the House of Julia Felix: alive, unmarred after a thousand faded years; and sees, in the shadows of his thoughts, the bodies- the white Pompeiian plaster casts that once were people, who once could also love and dream._

 _He who refuses does not repent_

 _He can dream about the fate of Herculaneum, in the lap of Vesuvius- and he can almost feel the heat, and hear the aging Pliny: smothering on the shores of the pumice-choked Mediterranean, chronicling the event of ages._

 _And he sits and he dreams by his slowly dying fire- of everything, of_ anything _under the sun- but the pines above him groan their nightsong, and he shivers and wraps his arms tighter about himself. And he dreams of Herculaneum, in the lap of Vesuvius- if only to keep from thinking of the dark pine forest, and the waters of the Tahoe kissing the shore._

 _Asked again he'd still say no_

 _No, no, a defiant_ no! _But here the question changes. The wind shifts, and the boughs are laughing a raucous laugh. He tries to drown it out with memories- wealthy, worldly merchants peddling their goods, or the chanting refrains of tribesmen in the jungle- but the tribesmen are happy cowboys on payday, and the hawkers are the snake-oil scoundrels on their soap boxes._

 _He submits._

 _He hunkers down into his jacket_

-it was warm, and new-

 _and listens to the wind_

-a "going-away" present, or perhaps a "come-back-soon" present-

 _and he thinks of the family he's left behind._

 _In a sudden fit of temper, the embers sizzle and pass away. He is gone in an instant._

"Take our hearts and all our love with you, Adam."

"Hey- write to us, will ya older brother?"

"And bring yerself back in one piece, ya hear?"

 _Yet that no- the right no- drags him down all his life_

* * *

 _ **A/N: Hope y'all enjoyed part three! The poem butchered today goes by** Che Fece... Il Gran Refiuto **, written by Cavafy and translated by Edmund Keeley. You can find it on Poetry Foundation in its entirety. Thanks to everyone who cared to stop and take a look, and thanks a bunch more to those of you who happen to leave a comment.**_

 ** _Extra-Special thanks goes to Adamantwrites for being an awesome reviewer (and teaching me two new words! [you'd think I'd know milagro and apotheosis, I seem to use them often enough])._**

 ** _Adamant, I've fixed the typo (thanks for pointing it out). Being not-all-that religious, the idea of the Holy Mother line being blasphemous never crossed my mind. If it did offend anyone out there, I apologize for my indiscretion. As far as Ben's feelings toward Adam go, the original poem was the lament of a mother whose son was gone to sea. The icon she prays to grieves, knowing the son was lost to the depths and would never return. Here, Ben is worrying about the fate of his son and wondering_** _if **he'll ever come back, and is wondering whether his mother in heaven knows what's happened to Adam. I didn't mean to insinuate that he** didn't **want Adam to return. But, as always, things can be interpreted in many different ways.**_


End file.
